Dana Cartwright Mission 1: Stiletto Read Free Page B

pinned above his head by a lateral support beam. He tugged but only succeeded in causing agonizing pain to shoot down to his shoulder. His right hand he brought to his chest, bouncing it off the panel not more than five inches above his face. Blood oozed from his fingers and palm.
    Peering over at him from his left was a young woman, with cinnamon colored hair that framed her oval face. A long braid snaked down along her body beyond her waist. She was beautiful, absolutely captivatingly beautiful.
    Kieran blinked, noticing something unusual. It took him a long moment to realize why. “Your eyes…” Even bathed in amber from the torch, he noticed they were different. They just stared back at him — one blue and one brown — captivating and mesmerizing. “Who are you?”
    “Doctor…”
    “Cartwright…Dana January…” His brain barely retrieved the information. It was protesting, on overload, too many pain receptors firing.
    She waved something before his eyes. It sparkled. “You have a concussion, Mister Ambassador,” she cautioned, now focusing on his bleeding right hand. In the limited space — mere inches from his nose — he watched her use a medical device to sanitize and heal the lacerations on his fingers and palm. Then she slid a glove on it.
    “For protection,” she mumbled.
    He stared at the gray glove; barely realizing the hand was his own. “ Stiletto crashed.” His eyes widened with a moment of lucidity. “Doctor Dana? You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”
    Her magical eyes met his and his brain short-circuited again. “Your eyes,” he whispered. Her eyes smiled.
    And then the fog rolled in and everything seemed cloudy and distant, like the time he was under water, cave diving on Talentia III and someone up ahead had stirred up the flow and the visibility was barely three feet in front of him.
    “Ambassador?” She seemed so far away. “Ambassador Cray?”
    He didn’t understand why she was calling for the Ambassador. Her face was close, their chins touching. And she was forcing his eyes open one at a time; the little sparkles were right there inside his head.
    “I can’t feel my legs,” he whispered.
    “You have a spinal injury.” She said it softly, as if tempering the severity of the issue.
    It didn’t register with his brain. “And my hands burn like…”
    “I’ll give you something for the pain.” She fussed with a tube and pressed it against his neck and the burning left, replaced by a sensation of floating. His eyelids grew heavy and he sighed.  
    “That’s better.”
    Her cheek pressed against his, as she used the sparkling device. Her skin felt so soft and he tasted something sweet and smelled… “What do I smell?”
    “Smell? Oh, that’s coconut oil,” she answered.
    His nose was pressed into her hair and he sniffed again. “What is coconut oil?” He wondered.
    “What you are smelling… I use it to make my hair shine.”
    He licked a wisp of her hair. “Coconut oil?” It didn’t mean anything to him. “You’re very beautiful, Dana January,” he thought aloud. “The most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
    She blushed, but in the amber light she already glowed.
    He reached with his gloved right hand, pushing a stray lock of her bangs from her beautiful eyes. “Who are you?”
    She smiled sympathetically, “Doctor - Cartwright…”
    “No… Who?” He struggled for words. “Tell me about you?”
    Her response was to flash more sparkles before his eyes. He could still see them even after closing his lids. “What are you doing?”
    “Taking readings of your vital signs.”
    “Am I dying?”
    “No,” she assured. “Your heart is strong. You haven’t lost too much blood. You do have a concussion.”
    “And I can’t feel my legs,” he reminded weakly.
    “That, too,” she whispered.
    They heard a loud, metallic noise and felt the beams and panels vibrate ominously. White powder rained down on them.
    Kieran looked. It was like